1996 – In a “Christmas gesture,” Tupac Amaru rebels free 225 hostages from the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Lima, Peru, but keep 140.

1998 – Israel’s Parliament votes overwhelmingly for early elections, signaling the demise of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ailing hard-line government and effectively freezing the already-troubled peace process with the Palestinians.

2001 -Passengers and crew aboard an American Airlines jet en route to Miami subdue Briton Richard Reid as he tries to detonate explosives hidden in his shoes.

2003 – The Roman Catholic archdiocese of Boston pays the 542 plaintiffs who agreed to a sexual abuse settlement with the archdiocese. The archdiocese will sell church property to fund the part of the $85 million settlement not covered by insurers.

2008 – Thailand’s revered monarch urges the new government to make peace its priority, breaking months of silence about the political turmoil that shut down Bangkok’s airports and sparked deadly violence in the streets.

2010 – Iraq’s Christian leaders call off Christmas celebrations amid new al-Qaida threats on the tiny community still terrified from a bloody siege on a Baghdad church.

2013 – Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Russian oligarch who crossed President Vladimir Putin and ended up in jail for a decade, says he plans to devote his life to securing the freedom of the country’s political prisoners.

2014 — Pope Francis issues a blistering indictment of the Vatican bureaucracy, accusing the cardinals, bishops and priests who serve him of using their Vatican careers to grab power and wealth and living ‘hypocritical ” double lives.